One of the strongest ties uniting human beings is found among the members of a family, the unit which is the foundation of the structure of organized society. Each family requires a home for its normal life and development. A normal home, especially in rural districts, means a piece of land and a suitable house for the family; it implies also an opportunity to earn the family living either on the same land—if it is large enough, as in the case of truck gardens or farms—or in a near-by industrial establishment; it implies acquaintances and friends in the same neighborhood, and certain minimum necessities of modern civilized life, such as roads, post office, newspaper, church, school, physician.

STRENGTH OF HOME TIES

When an immigrant has succeeded in establishing such a home in America he invariably answers, when questioned as to whether he considers America or the land of his birth to be his country, that America is his country. And he goes on to explain, saying that America is a free country, with better chances for everybody; that he has made his home here; that his children have been born here; that they have better schooling and much brighter hope for the future. For all these reasons, he explains, he does not want to return to his native country except perhaps on a visit, and he repeats again and again that America, not his old country, is now his homeland.

There is no other tie that binds a man so closely to a country as his home. No wonder, for home is everybody's center of the world, lookout tower, refuge, and resting place. With it are associated the most intimate and tender feelings a human being ever experiences, and naturally the same fine feelings extend to the place in which one's home is located. So we speak of fatherland, motherland, homeland, expressing in these words the close intimacy between family, home, country, and ourselves.

In direct distinction, the word "homeless" has implications of aimless drifting, of destitution and misery, and of the indifference of a "homeless" man to "his" country. Certain advocates of cosmopolitanism in their agitation against patriotism often take advantage of the importance of home in the relation of a man to his country when they appeal to the "proletarians": "Do you own anything? Do you have even a home in this country? If not, why then should you love it?"

Although a home means a little world by itself—much more than a piece of land with a shelter on it—the establishment of a home, nevertheless, involves, first of all, the acquisition of a piece of land, even though it be the smallest suburban building lot with a twenty-five-foot frontage. If the piece of land is large enough so that its owner, if he is inclined to land cultivation, can make a living by working on it as either gardener or farmer, so much the better.

IMMIGRANTS' LOVE OF THE LAND

It so happens that a large number of immigrants who come to our shores with the intention of remaining here desire to establish a home, to acquire land, and to become land cultivators in America. Most of them have had farming experience in Europe. But what actually has happened and is happening year after year is that these immigrants, saturated with farm life and experience, drift to the cities, to work in mines and factories and at pick-and-shovel jobs.

This fact was confirmed so clearly by the investigation of the United States Immigration Commission that its report has been the basis of the following statement:

In the year 1900, as is shown in Table I, there were 276,745 foreign-born white persons of both sexes employed as farm laborers in this country. In 1910 the number of immigrant agricultural laborers was 336,753, an increase of 60,008, or about 22 per cent.

According to the reports of the Commissioner General of Immigration, 1,602,748 immigrant agricultural laborers, male and female, arrived in the United States between 1901 and 1910, both years inclusive. If all of these incoming agricultural laborers had found employment on farms in this country, the increase of immigrant agricultural laborers in 1910 over the number of 1900 would have been 579 per cent instead of 22 per cent.

The United States Immigration Commission made a detailed study of 17,141 households, the heads of which were miners or wage earners in manufacturing establishments. Of the persons of these households for whom complete data were secured, 62 per cent of the males and 24 per cent of the females were employed as farm laborers or as farmers before coming to the United States. The Immigration Commission also secured detailed information from 181,330 male and 12,968 female employees in mines and manufacturing establishments. Of these, 54 per cent of the males and 44 per cent of the females were employed in the old country in farming or as farm laborers.[5]

The transformation of European peasants into mill hands and miners in America is to be ascribed partially to the fact that land was not available to them when they arrived in this country. Either they did not know where the land which awaited a cultivator was located, or they had not enough money to buy such land, or they lacked credit needed to undertake operations in clearing and preparing new land, or they were ignorant of American farming conditions. Some seemingly insurmountable reason prevented them from following their desires and calling.

This occupational change has resulted in loss to this country. The experience in agriculture of these large numbers of men, coupled with their ability for the hard manual labor required in truck gardening, in intensive farming, and especially in the opening up of new land, has been wastefully cast aside. The significance of such loss is clear in view of the fundamental importance of agriculture in the nation's life. About two thirds of the area of our country is uncultivated as yet, and the one third that is cultivated is worked extensively rather than intensively. Furthermore, native Americans and even old-time immigrants avoid hard pioneering work in the wilderness since they can find opportunities of lighter work and better returns elsewhere, on already established and "paying" farms.

Aside from economic loss there has also been a loss in social values. The desire of a large number of immigrants to establish permanent rural homes and to become citizens here has gone to the winds. Instead of scattering over the country and mingling with the native population, they have been driven to the congested cities and have formed there Little Polands, Little Italies, ghettos, etc., remaining almost untouched by American influences. Both the economic and the social loss might have been averted to a considerable degree if the nation had had an effective land policy and if it had come to the aid of the immigrants in distributing and settling them on the land.

The certainty in the mind of an immigrant that there is a stake in the land for him, and his confidence that in the acquirement of his stake he gets a square deal from all concerned, are more important from the viewpoint of Americanization than the actual acquirement of any settlement on land; for not all immigrants desire to own a piece of land and work on it, and not all who desire to can actually do so. Other considerations—for instance, family conditions, industrial opportunities, city attractions, etc.—prevent a number of such immigrants from becoming farmers. Many come to America only to make money so as to return and buy land at home. For land ownership is to them the goal in life. What a change in this transient attitude might be made by a policy of having land available and usable for such birds of passage. Certainty and confidence as purely psychological factors in the process of Americanization can be cultivated in the immigrants by affording effective public guidance and protection to those who actually attempt to settle on land.

As the land settlement conditions now are, a large number of the land-seeking immigrants are disappointed in the acquirement of land; they have no confidence in the land sellers and dealers, and they have even become suspicious of the country's laws and public institutions connected with land transfer by purchase. To illustrate: An old-time Italian immigrant, a skilled truck gardener, working for another Italian near a small Eastern town, explained to the writer:

NEED FOR LAND REGULATION

It is an astonishing, almost unbelievable fact that, although nearly all industrial and trade pursuits have come under some sort of public regulation, licensing, or supervision—even such minor trades as shoeblacking, fruit peddling, and mere popcorn and peanut selling—land dealing, one of the most basic of all trades, has been practically overlooked by our lawmakers.

The regulation of a trade requires a definite policy toward the present and future of the trade in relation to the public safety and welfare, and especially is this true in regard to the regulation of land dealing. The United States needs acutely regulation of land dealing within its boundaries, and as a natural antecedent to regulation it should have and must have a definite land policy. To go one step farther, no efficient policy is possible unless it is founded on certain sound principles. What are the guiding principles for a practical land policy?

First of all, there is the economic principle. It is the increase of food production, on which the very life of the nation, its development and future strength, depend. The war demonstrated this in a most convincing way. The increase of productivity of the land must be continuous and permanent. The 1920 Census reports city population increases five times as rapidly as rural. Aside from conservation of the soil—that is, saving what we have—there must go on constant improvement of the soil by fertilizing and by the introduction of more efficient methods of cultivation, intensive as well as extensive.

Then comes the social principle of an efficient land policy, with the end in view of affording more opportunities for the establishment of family homes. Among other results, this would closely bind the foreign-born elements of the population to the country and in this way materially assist the assimilation process. It would make for better public health and for greater happiness of the people.

The political goal is the stability of democracy and the strength of the country in domestic and international relations, in peace and in war. The agrarian disorders of Europe, its varied turmoils, revolutions, and war, accompanied by starvation and epidemics, are to a large degree due to the old prevailing out-of-date forms of land tenure inherited from mediÆval times.

Toward these ends certain changes and reforms in the distribution and colonization of land should be undertaken. The existing conditions are such as require prompt attention, not only in the interests of the general public and for the sake of the general good of the country, but especially for the sake of the immigrant. Because of his greater ignorance and helplessness and his usually strong desire to settle on land, he suffers more often and more severely than the native-born American from the unscrupulousness and dishonesty and laissez-faire methods that flourish in the absence of a public land policy and public land regulation.

The partial or utter misfortune which the immigrant so often experiences molds his entire opinion of and attitude toward the United States. From the viewpoint of the Americanization of the immigrant, therefore, the questions of land policy, land colonization, and land dealing are of the utmost importance. Before a discussion of reforms is begun, a general description of present conditions, from this point of view of Americanization, is necessary.